Impact of a large-scale educational intervention program on venous blood specimen collection practices

• Published in: BMC Health Services Research
• Main Authors: Bölenius, Karin, Lindkvist, Marie, Brulin, Christine, Grankvist, Kjell, Nilsson, Karin, Söderberg, Johan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för omvårdnad 2013
• Subjects: Adherence to guidelines; Education; Implementation; Intervention; Phlebotomy; Pre-analytical errors; Primary healthcare; Venous blood specimen collection; Health Care Service and Management; Health Policy and Services and Health Economy; Hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisation; hälsopolitik och hälsoekonomi; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-84020; https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-463

BACKGROUND: Phlebotomy performed with poor adherence to venous blood specimen collection (VBSC) guidelines jeopardizes patient safety and may lead to patient suffering and adverse events. A first questionnaire study demonstrated low compliance to VBSC guidelines, motivating an educational intervention of all phlebotomists within a county council. The aim was to evaluate the impact of a large-scale educational intervention program (EIP) on primary health care phlebotomists' adherence to VBSC guidelines. We hypothesised that the EIP would improve phlebotomists' VBSC practical performance. METHODS: The present study comprise primary health care centres (n = 61) from two county councils in northern Sweden. The final selected study group consisted of phlebotomists divided into an intervention group (n = 84) and a corresponding control group (n = 79). Both groups responded to a validated self-reported VBSC questionnaire twice. The EIP included three parts: guideline studies, an oral presentation, and an examination. Non-parametric statistics were used for comparison within and between the groups. RESULTS: Evaluating the EIP, we found significant improvements in the intervention group compared to the control group on self-reported questionnaire responses regarding information search (ES = 0.23-0.33, p < 0.001-0.003), and patient rest prior to phlebotomy (ES = 0.27, p = 0.004). Test request management, patient identity control, release of venous stasis, and test tube labelling had significantly improved in the intervention group but did not significantly differ from the control group (ES = 0.22- 0.49, p = < 0.001- 0.006). The control group showed no significant improvements at all (ES = 0--0.39, p = 0.016-0.961). CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrated several significant improvements on phlebotomists' adherence to VBSC practices. Still, guideline adherence improvement to several crucial phlebotomy practices is needed. We cannot conclude that the improvements are solely due to the EIP and suggest future ...